Writers are a little below the clowns and a little above the trained seals. John Steinbeck

Archive for the ‘Love’ Category

Is that really an accurate statement? How can you accurately state that someone you’ve never seen before, never spoken with, never danced with, never dined with, struck you dumb? Was it love or was it lust? Was it overwhelming beauty, the clothing, the confidence emanating from that other person…just what was it that made you utter that statement? In the first edition of The Godfather, Michael Corleone is said to have been “…hit by the thunderbolt” when he first meets Apollonia, ergo, love at first sight, but how can one actually believe that?

Perhaps “love at first sight” is a misnomer, perhaps not. I contemplated this the other day as I was staring at the picture I have of my late wife on the mantel. What actually happened to me when I walked into the teachers’ room and saw this woman, and without thinking twice, thought to myself, “This is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with?” Hey, I didn’t know who the hell she was. Beautiful? In my eyes, absolutely. She was smiling at something someone had said…and it was a fantastic smile. In hindsight, however, looking at the photograph, I had to ask myself, “Why and how? Why and how did you know that this was the one?”

According to Dr. Elliot Cohen, writing in Psychology Today, “…in simply seeing others without ever having an opportunity to get to know them, we cannot reasonably be said to love them. Indeed, in some cases, when we get to know others whom we admire from a distance, we may even come to regard them as downright repulsive!” Personally, I’ve never found that to be the case, but I suppose he has a point. The other person’s views may not coincide with your own and that could, I suppose, be a turn off. They might spit when they talk or have some physical impairment that you didn’t notice at first, express racist, misogynistic or anti-something views not in line with your own, and while that may not make them “downright repulsive,” it could affect your idea of wanting to spend too much time with them.

Cohen believes that the “at first sight” may not be that at all. That we may relate to our “love” because they resemble someone we have known and thought highly of or even been related to. He then carries it to the extreme of citing Plato’s contention that our souls are parted when we leave Heaven and come to earth. When we find “that special person,” our “soul mate” as it were, the two souls are joined. That’s a bit of a stretch, even for me.

It seems to me that falling in love is quite different from love at first sight. The former takes a great deal of time to develop. You “fall” in love, I believe, as you grow to know one another, as you learn to appreciate how the other acts, thinks, feels, and yes, even makes love. These are the deeper feelings which bond you to one another forever while “love at first sight” may be something of a purely sexual attraction.

Aimee Boyle, a writer and teacher, states, “The intensity of falling in love at first sight can conjure a sense of spirituality; a sense that you have touched the divine, have found a spark of the essence of love and the meaning of your life on earth. No matter what your experience, love at first sight can and does occur and can be one of the most confusing, exhilarating and sacred experiences possible.”

Hot damn, talk about opposing viewpoints, but are they really? Perhaps I’m just a fortunate guy. I’ve been twice blessed. Getting to know and fall even more deeply in love with Joan, sharing our fifty plus years together, raising three children, and then watching her waste away to cancer did nothing to abate my love for her. Seeing my current partner for the first time was not the same. Attractive? Yes, but not the staggering beauty that I thought I saw when I was 22. “Well the, how did you know she was for you?” you might ask. It didn’t take long. The evening she arrived we stopped for dinner on the way home. Our conversation was enough for me to say, “Wow, I really like the way you think. We have so much in common. I really want to know you better.” It had nothing to do with bearing and raising children. Hell, we’d both been down that road. It had nothing to do with jumping into bed and all the attendant emotions that go with that. No, it was completely different. How I felt at 75 was a far cry from how I felt at 22. Was it maturity? Probably. Joan and I had matured together. My partner and I are mature enough to know that it doesn’t matter if one of us leaves the cap off the toothpaste, but we’re also mature enough to not do such a stupid thing.

So, can there be “love at first sight?” My answer would agree more with Cohen. “Love,” no. A desire to get to know this person better because he or she looks like “my kind” of person…oh yeah. And “my kind” includes many, many things, such as intellectual pursuits, physical activities, educational actions, and sure, sexual pleasures. You may get hit by the “thunderbolt,” but if that’s all there is, the depth of feeling is, in my mind, shallow and not worth the pursuit.

Less than a month after graduating from college, I was walking down the aisle of a Catholic church in Waban – that’s one of the many villages of the city of Newton – marrying a beautiful girl that I had met seven months before in one of those quirks of fate ‘thingies.’ I had been exercising my option on a second major and doing some substitute teaching and on the first day on the job, was smitten with an arrow from Cupid’s quiver. She was smart, beautiful, and the weird part was…she liked me! I’d already had one bad breakup over this Catholic vs. Protestant religion idiocy, and while I wasn’t certain about spending a lifetime together, I was damn well certain that that would not get in the way with this girl.

Fifty years, three children, and nine grandchildren later, we buried the girl who’d become a woman, a mother, a grandmother, and my best friend. But as you would know had you read “The Dash” by Linda Ellis, it was neither the date of her birth nor the date of her death but that little line between them that made our lives together so wonderful. If there was ever any truth in the statement that “opposites attract,” it certainly applied in our case. She was an only child from a reasonably prosperous family and lived in a large city. I was one of three from a family that struggled mightily after the Great Depression and who, by comparison, lived in a rather small town. Finding one another as we did, well…you could only describe it as quirky.

The first seven years of our marriage was a series of highs and lows. The highs came in attending numerous shows in Boston, having a place of our own on the Cape and attending every performance that the Falmouth Playhouse had to offer; dining in some of the finer restaurants around and generally enjoying our jobs. She became Director of Admissions at Tufts Dental School, and I was slowly moving up in my job at Northeastern. We commuted together, tried new recipes together, did a few crazy things together that you don’t need to read about and in total, had a wonderful life. The lows came as we lost three children before they were born…and if you haven’t been there, it’s pretty low.

The first two children might have been called Irish twins, they were born so close together. The third came along a few years later. As those of you who are married well know, life with young kids is a life unto its own. They become the center of your universe. We were no different. Elementary school, Cub Scouts, Brownies, PTA, Little League, and a host of other activities combined to eat up that time formerly dedicated to plays, movies, and restaurants. In our case, swimming became the dominant focus. I swear that our car could have gone from Newton to the Brown University swimming facility on its own. As parents, we maintained our “slim” figures by sweating it out at day-long swim meets where the indoor temperature seemed well into the triple digits.

Then…she was gone. The kids, by now, were married with children of their own. The house…well, the house was empty…except for a man growing older with little to do. A few years later, a new lady came into my life…all the way from California. Life became worthwhile living once more. This love was different…and so was the lifestyle. From restaurants and shows, it became craft fairs and drives around New England. It was learning the history of this part of the country and teaching me the history of her part of the world. It was a renewed form of education. From Boston Duck tours to a helicopter ride.

The rite of spring became building of raised garden beds – she did the building – to watching seeds turn into summer squash, jalapeno peppers – wow, could they be hot – and tomatoes. I was taught about heirloom, pear, cherry, yellow, and beau coup other types of tomatoes. We had radishes – who the hell eats radishes – cucumbers, and even a season or two of green beans and peas. All of this was totally foreign to me and to what my life had been like. Other parts of the yard were taken over by a variety and abundance of lilies, sun flowers, forget-me-nots, and hyacinth. Roses included Mr. Lincoln, Queen Elizabeth, cocoa, roses-within-roses, yellows, reds, whites, pinks, and on and on. Flowers were planted that bloomed in early spring, followed by late spring, followed by summer. It appeared that color appeared from April through October. My new love sprayed with her own concoctions of both fertilizer and bug killer. Diatomaceous earth, normally used in the pool filter, became a barrier against slugs; lily beetles were plucked with tweezers, and tomato worms quickly learned the errors of their ways if they were gutsy enough to get anywhere near our plants.

Why do I tell you these things? Why would I lay a part of my life bare for all to know? There are many answers, but perhaps the most important one is directed at those who are widows or widowers. Life does not end when your partner dies. It does not end when the nest empties and only the two of you remain, often as strangers because so much of your time has been devoted to children rather than each other. You may have to learn to love again, but it will be a deeper love and yes, it will be a different type of love. And then, as I have said, you will be alone. Friends will come and they will go; few, if any, leaving the footprints on your heart that were already deeply imprinted. If you are as fortunate as I, and you may well be, someone will come along, and you, you will find a totally different world…again, just as I did. Remember, life is worth living to your very last breath.

“I know a little bit about a lot of things…but I don’t know enough about you.” It’s one of those golden oldies that pops into my head now and again…the way a lot of the old songs do. I’ve stopped listening to the radio in the car; haven’t done it for several years now. It was on the advice of a psychiatrist that I stopped listening. I’d been diagnosed with depression, and it was suggested that I spend a bit of time with a ‘shrink’…an impolite term, I admit but a hell of a lot shorter than the technical term. She suggested that rather listening to music in the morning, I consciously practice some deep breathing in the car, listening to the depth of the breaths…in…out; in…out. You get the picture. That’s what I did, and I found that the breathing brought a certain amount of peace to whatever drive I was making. Remarkable what those people learn from textbooks, isn’t it? Boil it down and it’s common sense; if your ears aren’t being assaulted – and with the music of today, that’s exactly what it is – you can actually enjoy driving [unless it’s during the morning commute in Boston, Baltimore or Hartford]. Hell, I don’t even know if the radio works anymore; after all, the car is fifteen years old!

There are times, however, when I find myself humming tunes from way back when…songs, I remember from my high school and college days; songs from shows that Joan and I attended during our early years of marriage; even songs from some of the old movies. I suppose it beats the hell out of trying to practice a quick draw while seated and driving…that would be from some old movies also, but that takes much more concentration than listening to music in your head.

Let me give you, oh, I don’t know, maybe just a few examples of knowing a little bit. We were in the grocery store this morning, doing a bit of rainy day shopping. At the ‘special’ meat counter – where you can pick out; ah, fuck it; it’s where they have the better cuts of meat, ok? Anyway, there were a couple of people ahead of us and they were treating the guy behind the counter with a certain degree of…well, I call it “meanness;” Juli called it a “me first” attitude. I suppose some others might say they were being all business in what they wanted, but that really wasn’t it. They were demanding in a way that just wasn’t very nice. I thought back to the days when I worked in a grocery store. I don’t remember people like that. Maybe I’ve forgotten them, but these people are sufficiently memorable that their arrogance would stick in my mind. At times, I worked behind the meat counter; I remember people saying, “Please” and “thank you.” Not one of the people ahead of us this morning used either word. So, what’s happened? Have we become a nation of “less-polite-people?” Are we so self-absorbed that we don’t consider that others might enjoy a please or a thank you? Therefore, I would say that I know a little bit about courtesy to those who are doing something for us, but I sure as hell don’t know why we aren’t more appreciative.

I know a little bit about gardening…which is a heck of a long way from what I knew before Juli arrived on the scene. Dad had small gardens wherever we lived, but we weren’t allowed to ‘help’ tend them. Since we didn’t know a weed from a plant, Dad was probably correct in keeping us away; he could have taught us the difference, but I’m not certain just how trustworthy we were…kids, ya know! After spending time watching, listening, and asking questions of Juli, I was able to tell a woman at the gym one day that her lilies were being eaten by a bug that first appeared as a black spot on the underside of the lily leaves [doesn’t that have a nice ring to it…”lily leaves,” and that she could just whisk them off with a fingernail into a cup half filled with water. I’ve also learned a few other things about gardening, but if you asked me to plant, grow, and control all pests before harvest; I’d just look at you with the stupid grin of someone who can talk a good game but who can’t play worth a damn!

Yes, I know a little bit about a lot of things. I’d like to believe that I know a lot about love, but I really think I’d be kidding myself. I thought I was in love in high school but in hindsight they were just childish crushes or the libido exercising its right of passage. There were also a couple of ‘flings’ while I was in college, but by then, I was fully aware that they were far from love. I also remember walking into the teachers’ room at Rockland High School on the first day that I was substituting. There was a young teacher at the back of the room, talking with another female teacher. They were both smoking; I was a smoker back then. One look; that was all it took; just a quick glance and as has been said, “The thunderbolt hit,” and it hit hard. I had no idea who this woman was; I remember thinking that I hoped to hell she wasn’t married because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her…that was that. She wasn’t married or engaged. Talk about pursuit! That was November; she said, “Yes,” in March, and on July 4th we married. Fifty plus years later, we said, “Goodbye.” It wasn’t a pleasant goodbye; it was goodbye because cancer had won its war…again. “I’ll never love again,” I said to myself. “No one can ever replace her,” I thought. “I’ll be alone until we meet again,” was my philosophy.

During Joan’s health crisis, I received an e-mail from a lady in California. It wasn’t meant for me – or maybe it was – so I responded that she had the wrong person. She thanked me, and we started a conversation about New England and California. I’d been there; she’d never been here. We became friends in the best sense of that word. Two years later, she asked if she might visit. She arrived and it soon became apparent that the friendship was stronger and more attracting than either of us had originally thought. Love became a word I thought I’d never use or hear again, but yeah, it happened. Did she ‘replace’ Joan? No, that could never happen. She lost someone to the same disease that killed my wife? We were simpatico in so many ways that it was wonderful. After she retired, I asked her to move from California. She did, and we’ve found a new love. Therefore, I think I can say that I know a lot about love. I’ve been blessed because Joan and Juli are my loves. Each has sameness and each has many differences, but they are loves, very, very genuine loves. I’m a lucky man. I may know a little bit about a lot of things, but I’m happy to report that I’ve been taught a lot of things about love.

Today I have decided that I am going to ramble. You may elect to stay on this train or you may choose to get off at any point. We won’t be moving particularly quickly so it – whoops, there goes the first one – should be relatively painless.

Let’s suppose for a moment that I could be reborn as myself; same mom, same dad, same sister who bullied the hell out of me. Being three years older and much wiser, she got away with that crap. However, let’s assume that the current me left that “note to self” that many people seem to be talking about these days so that I could take advantage of what I have or have not learned in my rebirth. There are so many things I wish I had known in my various stages of life, so let us have a look at what I’d say. It might even trigger some thoughts of your own.

First, I’d say that I couldn’t be any luckier to have a Mom and Dad like my own. Neither one made it out of high school, but that was in the late 19th and into the beginning of the 20th Century. Seems a long way back, does it? You bet your ass it was, and things were a great deal different than they are today. Our telephones, if one was able to afford one, were party lines. I’m quite certain that I was in my teens before we had a private phone. We had no computers of any kind, much less the ones that we carry around in our pockets today. There was a pilot at the Hanover airport [a dirt strip with one hanger] who took us up – one-by-one – in his biplane – and I was smitten by flight. On Sunday nights, we had ‘monkey’ for dinner; it was tomato soup with cheese melted in it and poured over soda crackers. It was either that or fried bologna for Sunday dinner. When I ask people now about those two meals, most remember the fried bologna, but no one seems to ever have had ‘monkey.’ I was born just as we were starting to come out of “The Great Depression,” – we got by.

If I was leaving a note, I’d tell my new self to be more interested in what school has to offer and not to look at it as a drudge. Just because my folks didn’t go very far doesn’t me that it’s something I should want to emulate. My mother and father always believed in education; the fact that they dropped out was merely so they could earn money for the family, and it was a practice not uncommon in those days. Therefore, when Madeline Lannin was teaching us to read and write in the first grade…that’s correct; the first grade was for teaching reading and writing; there were no kindergartens back then, nor were there pre-schools or playschools or whatever the hell they’re called today…she was giving us the building blocks on which every other teacher would add a level. By Grade 6, I’d say to my new self, you better have mastered all of the subject matter you were given because if you hadn’t, Mr. Metiever would probably cuff you upside the head – see, even what you learn and when you learn it has changed – because you’re now heading for junior high school, a time for you to make some hard decisions. You can choose the easy road or the more difficult one; you can loaf your way through the next six years or you can work your ass off in the hopes that it will make a difference in your life. Personally, I’d recommend the latter; I did not and have paid a price for it up to this point of my life. I’d work harder in Agnes Lioy’s English class, and study harder in Mr. Joyce’s algebra period. I’d choose the more difficult curriculum over the one through which I could coast.

Like many kids of my time – at least as far as I knew – I was the first member of my family to go to and graduate from college…but I wasn’t any great shakes as a collegian – and I’d tell my new self to spend more time with studies than with trying to make time with girls by joining every coed club on campus.

I’d tell myself that smoking was perhaps the dumbest thing I ever did. At least today they put warnings on cigarette packs. They didn’t do that in my day and even those of us involved in athletics thought we could smoke without fear…what a bunch of idiots. It eventually catches up with you in one way or another, so don’t look at it; don’t touch it; don’t even think about trying it. We didn’t have narcotics like cocaine, heroin, oxycodone, or any of God-knows-what when I was growing up so I was never tempted. Let me advise you to put nothing in your body other than what might be prescribed by a doctor…even then, check out its potential chemical dependency

If you are interested in being an athlete, take good care of your body, and with all due respect to those who enjoy them, please stay away from sports where you stand a chance of concussions or what I call ‘later-life-injuries.’ Hell, I’ve had both knees operated on and three back surgeries which I can relate directly to my “glory” days…if that’s what you want to call ‘em! On the other side of that ‘dangerous’ coin is your talent. If you find that you have a talent, whether it is in athletics, academics, music, theater, or whatever, plunge into it with all of your heart and all of your soul. Don’t hold anything back; you will never know the full extent of your potential if you are shy with something that is uniquely yours.

As you move through your life, you will probably hear the word, “loyalty,” a great deal. You must be loyal to your company, to your boss, to your colleagues, etc. Don’t believe it. Loyalty is a two-way street, and unless your company, your boss, your colleagues have shown loyalty to you, don’t believe that you owe your loyalty to anyone who has never shown any to you. Another word you will hear a great deal is integrity. It’s the right and wrong of your soul. No one can ever take your integrity from you…you must give it away. To give your integrity away is always wrong, because when someone asks you to do so, their reasons are inevitably for the wrong reason…don’t give your integrity away…to anyone…to anything…ever!

Someday you’ll fall in love. It won’t all be sex and starry eyes. If you can determine whether or not she’s really the one for you, you’ll be the first man ever to do so since Adam. If you commit to monogamy and marriage, remember this…there will be good times and there will be times that are not so good. There will be great times and there will be times of inconsolable sorrow. Only together, depending on each other’s strength, will you both get through them. Just as you are her rock, so she must be yours.

Well, young me, there are many more things that I should probably tell you, but I’m in my dotage now so I can’t remember what they are. Let me leave you with a quotation from Leonardo da Vinci, “Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.”

Like you, I think, I’m not crazy about Christmas promotions that begin sometime in late September. Also like you, I recognize that need for merchants to sell goods, make a profit, even create jobs to help keep the economy growing, but I truly believe pushing some of this crap that you never see advertised at any other time of year is just plain tacky, tacky, tacky. For example, when else do you find ‘Clapper’ ads being pushed so hard, or the plush animals with all of their pockets? Want to drink fizzy flavored water, buy the stream dream or whatever the hell they’re calling it this year? I must admit that Chia Pets don’t appear to be big this year, but energizer bunnies are getting another shot in the arm.

This year, Christmas ads are vying with health care promotions; thus, it would appear making it unnecessary for writers to develop scripts too complicated. While there may be rules and regulations regarding how many minutes of advertising can be crammed into an hour of programming, I get the gut feeling that those rules are suspended between Halloween and the Super Bowl.

The one market that has yet to be tapped by the advertising agencies or the manufacturers is the over 70 group. Since some are saying the, “Seventy is the new fifty,” there must be a Christmas market there somewhere. You can’t really sell them a “year’s supply of…” anything because while you’re preaching youth to these folks, the fact of the matter is they could go anytime…and they know it. Since so many seniors are computer literate, selling board games (a) isn’t particularly profitable and (b) can easily be found as an “app” somewhere. Pushing a Nook or a Kindle also becomes a complex issue when dealing with seniors, most of whom will tell you they “…like the smell of paper and ink” that a book gives them, and what do you say in a thirty-second spot to counter that one. Gift cards are great but for how much? Is the degree of importance measured by the amount of a Walmart card? Not only is it a gift card – which shows just how little you think of me” – but to what store…”you know I never shop there” – which means you’re just going to regift the card anyway. Understand something very, very clearly: When you are searching for a gift for a senior citizen, there is a ninety-nine point nine percent chance that you will screw up!

I sort of came to an agreement with my three kids years ago, after they were married and had children of their own…I won’t give to them and they don’t give to me. I will give only to the grandchildren and because I have no idea what they like – our ages being as separated as they are – I give money. Obviously, it can never be enough but I figure that’s their problem, not mine. If I have a rough year, they have a rough Christmas…my answer to their downturned-little-mouths is a very silent, “tough shit; get over it!” I say that the agreement to give or not with the children versus grandchildren only, because the kids will sometimes try, but then, they don’t know my tastes, nor do they know that I really don’t need anything. I’d rather they put what money they spend on me into reducing their mortgage or buying something extra, like a good steak, for their refrigerator…”I don’t friggin’ need anything.” That’s not to say I have everything I want. Sure, I’d love the winter home in Boca or the Grand Caymans. The jet to get me there and back would also be nice, but who the hell is kidding whom. At my age, I like my bed at home; I don’t like flying anymore; and Boca in the winter is just as bad as it is in the summer – it’s God’s waiting room and who wanted to be reminded?

When Joan was alive, I would give a gift in her name to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. It was her favorite charity. If you asked her why, she wouldn’t have been able to give you a good reason, but she loved what they were doing. She may have seen a story on television or something that impressed her. To me she would give a gift in my name to the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge to help benefit the Dana Farber Cancer Research Center. I have lost so many friends and family to that insidious disease that anything that can be done to find a cure makes me happy.

Christmas is a great Holiday. It’s also a great Holy Day. Sure, scholars can prove six ways to Sunday that Christ was not born on December 25th. I don’t care; that’s the day we have chosen to celebrate the birth of Christian’s Lord and Savior. My rabbi next door and my Jewish friends at the gym all wish me a Merry Christmas and, tomorrow being the first day, I will wish them a Happy Chanukah. Our faiths may differ but I’d like to believe we all have faith. My prayers may be a bit longer around the Christmas Holiday, but that’s not to say that my faith is weaker throughout the rest of the year. It seems at Christmas I just like to spend a little more time talking to the Big Boss. Gifts don’t seem as important as prayers that He somehow help to unscrew this screwed up world.

My gift to myself is to watch White Christmas and a few other movies on that day. It’s a day when I cry some because Joan is no longer here to celebrate with me; and I cry some because I have a wonderful woman with whom to celebrate the holiday. I’m a pretty lucky guy when it comes right down to it. I pray that you feel lucky too.

Cripes, it’s a wonder that the dog will come to you when you call it by its right name. Of course, if you happen to call the dog by its right name, you’d be breathless by the time you finished and the poor freakin’ dog wouldn’t know what the hell you were talking about!

Our new pup comes from a top breeder of Cairn Terriers. No one planned it that way. Our last two dogs have been Cairns and they’ve been wonderful. This one’s full American Kennel Club (AKC) name is – now get this – ‘Tin Top Cairn’s Winchedon’s Widget, Wicked Witch of the West,’ summarily named ‘Widget.’ It just fits; no, no, no, not the whole damned thing, but she is a Widget. For those of you ignorant of the origin of the name, Mr. Webster says…”a small gadget or mechanical device, especially one whose name is unknown or unspecified.” Okay, okay, so it doesn’t really fit; blame the breeder. She names her litters by the letter of the alphabet and this litter had to begin with ‘W.’ Therefore, for AKC purposes, her name had to begin with that letter. Then you have to take into account the fact that Winchendon is one of Juli’s favorite towns in Massachusetts and that her favorite movie is The Wizard of Oz – and with all those ‘W’s’ in there, Glenda just didn’t fit – and the naming process becomes exceedingly transparent…right?

Winchendon is a lovely little town….more on that later.

Anyway, as amazing as it may seem, Widget will come when called by name…the shorter version that is. She also knows what to do when you tell her to go to ‘poop hill.’ This really requires no edification, but is merely a dictate of the intelligence of Cairns in general and Widget in particular. It was difficult for me to teach her to ‘stay’ and ‘down;’ Juli, of course, had that down to a science the first time the dog attempted to become entangled in Juli’s legs as well as the first time the dog attempted to jump into her lap – Juli good dog trainer; Dick good chew toy, ugh!

It’s somewhat difficult to describe the manner in which the dynamic of the household has changed since we’ve gone from being dogless for six months to now having a pup – she’s now six months old – in the house. There is, however, a definite change. When I get up at 4:15 am to go to the gym, I do now speak or acknowledge Widget in any manner despite her whines of “I’ve been in this crate the whole night; my legs are crossed, I gotta go so badly. C’mon, bud, let me out.” There is a very good reason for me not to let her out to go or even to acknowledge her in any way. No, it has nothing to do with my cruel personality. Assume for a moment that there comes a day when I do not wish to go to the gym for whatever lazy excuse I may wish to use. I do not wish to hear a Joe Lieberman whine – that’s what it sounds like – coming from the kitchen just because I elected not to stay in bed that day. It’s amazing what and how quickly dogs can learn…and no, I do not leave the kitchen light on when I leave! And yet, despite my refusal to acknowledge her as I leave, when I return and Juli has taken her out, her tail and entire body wag and wiggle at the sight of me. Perhaps it’s because she knows that if I’m wearing a hoodie, there will be treats in the muff.

I will grant that there are people who do not like dogs or cats or any pet at all. There are times when they are a colossal pain in the ass. Here in New England we seem to have a proclivity in the period between autumn and spring for things called blizzards. They can be extremely unpleasant and if one has to take one’s pet out of doors for biological reasons, the unpleasantness increases a hundred fold. When the pet has finished its ‘business,’ however, and said pet curls up in your lap or at your feet…you realize just how stupid you were not to dry its paws!

Oh, and about Winchendon…check out the town’s web site and stop expecting me to do all the work!

Cop: “Jeez, he wasn’t a bad looking guy ‘fore he went through the windshield.”

Driver: “Watch this guys; the first day, I got my Mom’s car. This really needs a ‘selfie.’”

Cop: “Yeah, all four gone…not one of ‘em with a seat belt.”

Sound stupid…or simplistic…or unrealistic…or like…I’d never do that? If you want to be cool, young, hip, and trendy, it’s exactly what you will do to impress all of your ‘friends’ – all 7,356 ‘friends’ – on your social media page.

The ‘selfie’ culture doesn’t necessarily focus on taking pictures of ‘oneself’ while driving. It merely focuses on taking a picture of ‘oneself,’ and posting said portrait on Instagram, Tumblr, or some other social media site, period. If this isn’t the ultimate form of narcissism I’m not certain what is. Sure, my picture is on Facebook; however, the photo was taken eons ago and I’m not particularly eager to update it. I’m not proud of my looks; neither, I should note strongly, am I ashamed of my looks…I think the nose less, one eyed, no teeth look is coming back into vogue, don’t you?

To me, self portraits are somewhat akin to posting everything and anything on your Facebook page, including what one had for breakfast as well as the time of your daily bowel movement. I hate to be a spoilsport but unless one has friends as warped as they are, most of us just don’t care that you lunched at Old Country Buffet or Applebee’s. I ate at Applebee’s once, not that it matters, but I managed to lose about ten pounds after that meal in what was an unpleasant and very uncomfortable evening. The worst part was that I was staying in a motel and had to get up early the next morning to teach an all-day workshop…yuk!

One of the arguments I have heard for taking ‘selfies’ is that they show the mood of the person at the time of the photo. Why? If, as many of these photographers have said, you are not taking them for friends but for total strangers, why should they give a damn about your mood; better yet, if you don’t even know them, why care about what they think?

Over one million self-photographs are taken every day. While the percentage is relatively small, several ‘selfies’ have admitted to taking what they thought was a sexy photograph and have later regretted it. A photo taken of you by you leaves you open to all sorts of comments from compliments to the ugliness that we all know exists in the world today. The minute you post a picture, you’re asking for trouble. Photos are an open invitation to criticism, even if it’s only joking. Depending on whom you are and your degree of self-confidence, the remarks made by others can be devastating to your psyche. “Oh, I don’t let that type of thing bother me,” is bullshit. No one takes kindly to criticism; I don’t care what they say or how strong they may believe they are.

You are what you are. You don’t need to become a ‘selfied,’ seeking approval from your peers. I’m old, fat, bald [by choice], have a white mustache, and have started to grow a hairy chin. I wear a T-shirt, shorts, sweat socks and sneakers to the gym. I know any number of people at the particular Planet Fitness where I spend time most mornings. We joke about age, weight, and anything else we can think of. However, every one of us realizes that we aren’t there to become a body beautiful; we are there for two basic reasons. The first is that we understand the importance of exercise to our health and well being. The second reason is that we all enjoy getting stoned. What? No, no, no, it’s not that kind of stoned. Well, perhaps in a way it is; you see, physical exercise triggers the release of endorphins. Endorphins were discovered in 1975. According to Symptomfind, “They are neurotransmitters, which mean they can prompt or suppress the signaling of nearby neurons. Mostly, endorphins function by interacting with receptors in cells in the part of the brain that controls emotion and blocks pain.” Cutting through the bullshit, here’s what they can do…

“Block pain: Endorphins affect the part of the brain that controls how you feel pain. When beta-endorphin was injected directly into the brain, it was 48 times more effective at pain relief than manmade opiates.

Boost mood: Endorphins have long been associated with increased feelings of pleasure. It’s thought that endorphins help encourage us to do the things we find pleasurable, including everything from friendship to exercising to eating food.

Relieve stress: When you’re stressed out, a boost of endorphins can make you feel more relaxed.

Moderating appetite: Part of endorphins’ role is to let your body know when you’ve had enough of something.

Enhance the immune system: Your immune system can get a boost when endorphins are secreted.

Release sex hormones: The production of endorphins can also trigger the release of sex hormones.”

Holymacaroni, Batman, one little drug can do all those things? Yes, it can. When I talk about getting ‘stoned,’ that comes under the mood-boosting part; however, I kid you not…when you get an endorphin rush, you feel on top of the world. The beauty of releasing endorphins is that this release lasts for hours. You don’t need photos of yourself; you know you’re great!

Leave the ‘selfies’ to the insecure ‘stars’ like Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and the rest. Recognize that it doesn’t matter and it particularly doesn’t matter if you also happen to be driving a car at the same time.